This invention relates to a jack and upper needle dial for a circular knitting machine and the double-knitting plush fabric fabricated by the same, and particularly a jack and upper needle dial structure that is capable of generating loop effect at the inner and outer sides of the fabricated double-knitting plush fabric, and preventing sinker ring from hitting inner and outer sinker plates for avoiding damage of the sinker ring and inner and outer sinker plates.
Conventional knitting process for fabricating stitch loop on the double-knitting plush fabric surface generally includes: disposing individual sinker plate in circular fashion in the grooves of a sinker seat, activating the knitting machine and actuating a needle dial to drive a knitting needle to pick up an inner yarn, a ground yarn and an outer yarn, and moving the sinker plate forward and rearward for a displacement desired by means of a sinker ring to produce the double-knitting plush fabric. The stitch loop is formed through the sinker plate. A conventional sinker plate has a nose section, a throat section and a belly section. There is a notch formed between the throat and belly section. During knitting operation, the inner yarn falls onto the nose section, top yarn falls onto the belly section and outer yarn falls onto the notch. If control is focused on the stitch loop at the front side, the stitch loop generated at the rear side is not satisfactory. On the other hand, if the control is focused on the stitch loop at the rear side, the stitch loop generated at the front side is not satisfactory. Hence employing only one sinker plate to control fabrication of the stitch loops for double-knitting plush fabric cannot be done effectively by the presently adapted technique, and the resulting fabric has a relatively loose engagement between the outer curls and ground yarns.
Furthermore, the slide groove in the upper needle dial is formed by milling machine. After machining, the two lateral sides of the slide groove have rough surfaces. The sinker plate moves in the slide groove will be scraped and forms rough surfaces at two sides. As a result, the sinker plate is difficult to move smoothly when driven by the sinker ring. It could cause impact between the sinker plate and sinker ring and result in damage of the sinker ring, and deforming or breaking of the sinker plate, and might impact normal operation of the circular knitting machine.